A Frustrating Misunderstanding
by Muggle Jane
Summary: Bill and Hermione: "It's difficult to date someone you already live with." Follow-up to Healing the Betrayed Heart, written for the HPFC Battle of the Houses!


**A/N: Not my character, no money being made, disclaimer of disclaiming.**

**The follow-up to 'Healing the Betrayed Heart.' Written for the HPFC Battle of the Houses.**

It's difficult to date someone you already live with. There are good parts, obviously. There's no awkward meet-the-flatmates situation. You know at the beginning of the night that both of your places are clean in case you end up there after the date. You know there's no chance of getting stood up or running late. Those things are great.

However.

When does the date end? Obviously there's no saying goodnight at the door. And when you get all flustered because you've just spent the past hour snogging on the couch and you reluctantly decide to call it a night because the man you're dating wants to take things slowly- and honestly, maybe if you wanted to take things slowly you shouldn't have spent an hour snogging on the couch anyway, but it's a lot harder to get up and leave when there's literally nowhere else to go- you are stuck in your room. And not only are you stuck in your room, you're stuck in your room knowing that the incredibly attractive man who left you aching for more is just up the stairs to the right.

Awkward.

Then, because you're living together and you both just spent a very frustrating night by yourselves, there's a repeat performance in the morning. And then it's a choice of spending all day in your room or flooing out to visit your best friend.

Which is how I ended up at 12 Grimmauld Place at 7:46 in the morning. I made coffee for Harry and Ginny before sitting down at the table and wondering exactly what I was going to do, because living with Bill was going to be the end of me.

Harry came downstairs in his pyjamas. He stared at me for a moment as if trying to work out why I was there at 8:12 in the morning. "Morning, Hermione."

"Morning, Harry. I made coffee."

"Right." His eyes focused on my neck. "Are those-"

"Yes."

"Right." He moved about the kitchen, getting himself a cup of coffee before sitting down next to me. "Have you eaten yet?"

I had not. I'd gotten up, gotten ready to start my day, and gone down into my own kitchen to find Bill shirtless and sweaty from his run and I'd spent the next half an hour sitting on the edge of the kitchen table with my eyes closed and my hands and mouth very busy. "Not yet."

He got up and pulled out a box of cereal and pitcher of milk and got bowls and spoons for both of us. "Didn't you have a date last night?" he asked, settling himself beside me again.

"Yes. Harry, I need to move in with you," I said desperately. "Living with Bill is going to end me."

"Didn't go well?" He sounded surprised.

"It did, and that's the problem. Bill wants to take things slowly because of how things ended up with Fleur and I don't know how much more 'taking things slowly' I can take before I just combust." I could feel the heat rushing to my face as I recalled Bill's idea of taking things slowly.

He fixed me with a stern look. "You're always welcome here, Hermione, and you know that. But have you tried actually talking to him?"

"I tried, but then..." I'd stared at his lean chest for a good minute and when I opened my mouth, I'd gotten as far as, 'Good morning,' before he'd grasped me about the waist, settled me on the table, and ducked his head to find something else entirely to do with our mouths. "This." I pointed to the incriminating evidence on my neck.

"Do you need a chaperone?" he asked wryly.

"I might," I answered despondently.

"You might what?" Ginny appeared in the doorway wrapped in a bathrobe, her hair still wet from her shower.

"Need a chaperone to talk to your brother."

She looked at me for a minute before passing by to where the coffee was. "My money's on this weekend," she commented innocently, her back turned so I couldn't see the expression on her face. I didn't need to see her to hear the smug smile in her voice.

"Not helping," I told her.

"Look, if you're that worried about it, you could floo call him," she suggested, turning back to face me, leaning back against the counter. "Fireplace is in the library."

"That seems a little ridiculous, doesn't it?" I asked.

"Asks the woman eating breakfast at her best friend's table at half-past eight in the morning," Harry said with a dig to my ribs.

I scowled into my coffee. "I could go and talk to him."

"Of course," Ginny agreed.

"We're both adults." I looked to Harry for confirmation.

"Oh, absolutely," he said, nodding.

"Right. I'm going to go and talk to Bill." I went to the sink and rinsed out my dishes and then walked out of the kitchen, up to the library.

"Do you reckon they're actually going to talk about it?" I heard Harry ask.

"You heard the part where I have money on this weekend, right?" Ginny answered.

I was scowling as I stepped out of the fireplace in Shell Cottage. Bill looked up at me from his seat on the couch. He considered my expression for a minute, then said, "Would it help if I said I was sorry for the marks?"

"You wouldn't mean it," I told him, folding my arms awkwardly in front of me.

"Well, that's true." He smiled that devastating smile and turned his attention back to the paper he had spread out on the other cushion of the couch.

"What's all that?" I asked, trying to peer at it from my position in front of the fireplace.

"I've got to go back to Egypt for a while." He had a quill and seemed to be filling in specific parts of the parchment.

I was simultaneously relieved and very, very disappointed. I crossed to the large stuffed chair and sank into it, watching him work. "How long?"

He glanced up at me, his blue eyes unreadable, then turned back to his work again. "A month at least. Possibly two."

"That long?" I asked, my heart sinking. Well. This was certainly going to make living in Shell Cottage easier on my frustrated hormones. "I thought you weren't done in Gringotts yet. Here, I mean." And significantly harder for the rest of me.

He was still going through the vaults of people who had died in the war, a lot of death-eaters among them. "This is why," he said. "Egypt has foreign parties in play, so it's considered much more urgent that what's going on here. This'll all keep."

"Oh." I sat for a while, watching him in silence, listening to the occasional scratch of quill against paper. "Do I need to go somewhere else?"

"Don't be daft, Hermione. This is your home now, isn't it?" He looked up to see my silent nod and then nodded himself. "So why would you go somewhere else? Besides, it's a lot better to go away, knowing you have a beautiful woman to come home to."

His compliment brought a rush of warmth to my cheeks. "When are you going?"

"Tomorrow. International travel is complicated, and they want me there by Monday. Thought we could go into town for dinner tonight." When I didn't answer, he looked up at me again. "Unless you have other plans?"

We were adults, right? We could talk about this. "Yes, dinner," I agreed shortly. "Fine." I looked at him for a moment, then took a deep breath. "Bill, you're making me crazy." Well, not entirely the way I'd planned to put it, but good enough.

His eyes ran over me and his mouth moved into a wolfish smile. "Well, I should hope so."

More heat rushed into my face. "That's not what I mean. Well, I mean you do, but..." I narrowed my eyes and folded my arms again. "Oh, honestly, Bill! I'm trying to have a conversation with you!"

"We're conversing," he replied, putting his quill down and sitting back against the back of the couch. "You should come sit over here and we'll continue conversing." He patted his denim-covered thigh with one hand, his other arm draped casually along the back of the couch.

"I can't," I protested. When I realized that I was already getting to my feet, I settled myself firmly back against the chair. "This is what I'm talking about, Bill. You want to take things slowly, but your version of taking things slowly is going to kill me."

The wolfish grin was back, and the way he was looking at me made the warm flush spread from my face, all the way down to my navel. "We're already living together; I reckon as long as we're not off shopping for rings, we'll be taking this as slowly as we can manage. If I recall correctly, you're the one who insisted it was time she went to bed last night. And left this morning."

I opened my mouth and closed it again. There was really nothing to say to that. "I was..." I tried. Nothing to say.

"Did I really make you speechless? Reckon that doesn't happen often enough. So..." he continued, his blue eyes moving leisurely over me again, lingering the front of my shirt where it dipped down to show a tiny hint of cleavage and then settling on my lips. "Come sit here and I'll start making up for all that time we're going to miss together while I'm in buried in musty old tombs."

I stood and moved over to him and when I got near enough, he reached out and his hands settled over my hips, guiding me down to sit facing him on his long thighs, one of my knees on either side of his hips. "You always seem to make me speechless, Bill," I murmured.

"Good." One of his hands splayed across my back, holding me close against him, the other found the nape of my neck and pulled me down so he could seal his lips to mine.

When his lips left mine to trail down the side of my neck, a sudden thought broke stubbornly through the delicious things he was doing to my tender skin. "Ginny is going to be so smug."

He pulled back to look at me. "Do you really think this is the best time to be bringing up my sister?"

"Sorry." I felt a little sheepish. "She said she's betting on this weekend."

He grinned. "She always was a smart one."


End file.
